Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to a backlight control technique and more particularly, to an electronic apparatus whose setting can be digitalized and a display backlight control method.
Description of Related Art
With development of display technologies, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have become the mainstream of displays. An LCD panel does not have self-luminance characteristics, and thus, a backlight module is commonly disposed thereunder to provide a light source required by the LCD panel.
Due to the need of the backlight by the display panel, it is a common application to use light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as the backlight for the display panel. Meanwhile, a system circuit of an electronic apparatus also has to be disposed with a power circuit for driving the LED backlight, so as to provide a power supply to enable a backlight module of the display panel. Electrical characteristics, such as the number of LED strings, a current flowing through each LED string or a voltage of each LED string corresponding to the LED backlight module are determined according to the internal structure of the display panel. Thus, as for electronic apparatus, e.g., an all-in-one PC (AIO PC), the design of the backlight power circuit layout is determined by the display panel.
FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an electronic apparatus. An electronic apparatus 100 may adjust backlight settings of a display 130 by using a bill of materials (BOM) 150. For descriptive convenience, only one display 130 is illustrated herein for description. A processor 110 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU) and/or a platform controller hub (PCH)) of the electronic apparatus 100 may transmit image data to the display 130 for playback through a low voltage differential signaling (LVDS) transmitter 120. As for the setting of backlight power of the display 130, the external circuit may be adjusted through the BOM 150 for a backlight driving integrated circuit (IC) 140, such that backlight setting values required by the corresponding display 130 are adjusted.
However, in a scenario where the electronic apparatus 100 needs two or more displays 130 whose electrical characteristics are not exactly the same, the BOM 150 has to be adjusted and re-designed according to electrical characteristics of the backlight required by each display 130. In other words, if the electronic apparatus 100 is expected to support the connection with various displays 130, while the electrical characteristics of each display 130 are not the same, the design of the BOM 150 becomes more complicated, which causes affection to audit and review processes of the BOM 150 or prolongs the production process of the electronic apparatus during manufacturing. Therefore, how to simplify the design with respect to the flow of setting the backlight module becomes an important subject.
Besides adjusting the electronic apparatus 100 to correspond to different displays 130 by using the BOM 150, the use of the BOM 150 may also be simplified by means of digital setting. With reference to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 is a schematic block diagram illustrating an electronic apparatus. In an electronic apparatus 200, a display controller 220 (e.g., a scalar IC, an embedded controller (EC) or a micro controller unit (MCU)) may receive image data transmitted by the processor 210, convert a signal format of the image data and transmit the image data to a display 230 for playback. Additionally, the display controller 220 may store backlight setting corresponding to the display 230 are stored in a firmware form, such that the display controller 220 may read the backlight settings corresponding to the display 230 after learning the display 230 currently connected to the electronic apparatus 200 and write the backlight settings corresponding to the display 230 into a backlight driving IC 240 by means of, for example, digital communication, such as through an inter integrated circuit (I2C), such that the backlight driving IC 240 may drive the backlight of the display 230 according to the settings.
Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the digital control method illustrated in FIG. 2 relies on the display controller 220 accessing the backlight settings. For the sake of manufacturing cost and system requirements of the electronic apparatus, the display controller 220 cannot be generally configured in each electronic apparatus, and thus, the digital control method cannot be applied in a wide range.